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Thursday, February 9, 2012

The Complete Guide To Southern California Accelerators and Incubators, Part I

In recent months, a dozen accelerators and incubators have emerged in the Southern California area, looking to help take the new generation of technology startups to funding and beyond. However, with the proliferation of incubators, the difficulty in figuring out which programs are--and aren't--worth looking at has become very difficult, if not impossible, for startup entrepreneurs. In an attempt to help people navigate the landscape of accelerators and incubators, we've put together a (hopefully) comprehensive list of Southern California's various startup accelerators and incubators. We've split this into three lists, depending on how the programs are structured.

Part I: The Accelerator Programs

What is an accelerator program? We've defined an accelerator program as a class-based, limited-time program which ties mentors, educational events, and often, seed funding, to help ideas become startups, and to help get startups to the point where they are fund-able. Most accelerators, but not all, offer up physical space, but they're more geared around mentoring and a formal program for helping companies to define their business, prototype and develop the first version of their service, and create a pitch and get funding. Most are modeled after the YCombinator and TechStars accelerator programs. We've deliberately left out in-house incubators, and programs which don't follow the class-based format (we'll cover those next). Listed in no particular order: